In Romans-sur-Isère in the Drôme, Saturday, after the knife attack. – J. Pachoud / AFP
A year after the knife attack in Romans-sur-Isère (Drôme) by a Sudanese refugee, which left two dead and five injured, the city commemorated the victims in meditation on Saturday.
The tribute, initially envisaged on Sunday to coincide with the anniversary of the tragic events, has been brought forward by one day to take into account new health guidelines.
“Delusional” and “terrorist” impulses
On Saturday April 4, 2020, Abdallah Ahmed-Osman, a 33-year-old Sudanese refugee, had stabbed a client of a butcher shop, born in 1965, and the manager of a café-theater, born in 1976. Five people were also injured in this attack which took place in the city center during the first confinement. The national anti-terrorism prosecution immediately took up the case.
The experts who examined him considered that Ahmed-Osman was driven by both “delusional” and “terrorist” impulses. Even if his judgment was then altered at the time of the facts, he should therefore be able to be judged, they concluded. Announced by the death knell of the Jacquemart Tower, near the café-theater La Charrette by Julien Vinson (one of the victims), the brief ceremony ended with two songs by his friend Akram Sedkaoui.
“Appease” or “stir”
Several hundred people, masked, were present on the Place du Champ de Mars, some with tears in their eyes. In the crowd, the family of Julien Vinson, as well as Emmanuelle Blachon, who had been seriously injured in the femoral artery. However, the other victims and their relatives had not made the trip.
The owners of the tobacco shop, where the assailant’s bloody journey began, “moved to settle in the West. It was for them the only way to rebuild, ”said the mayor of the city Marie-Hélène Thoraval. “The other victims preferred to stay in the background. For a victim, this kind of manifestation can have a double effect: it can appease but also stir. It’s not a formality, ”noted Marie-Hélène Thoraval. A commemorative plaque has been affixed to the statue, installed last week, of local artist Toros, who died last year.